


Scars

by biblionerd07



Category: Breaking Bad
Genre: Cutting, Gen, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-04
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2018-01-03 10:05:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1069194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Filling a prompt at the BrBa Kink Meme at LJ.  "Quite early on in canon (first season / second season - might make sense during Four Days Out), Walt and Jesse are cooking together when Jesse finally takes off the many, many layers he always seems to wear, even in mad heat, and Walt sees that his arms are just destroyed with what are obviously self-induced scars.  Walt questions Jesse."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> This story does involve cutting, so I included a trigger warning. This isn't part of my personal head-canon for Jesse, but I'm filling a prompt. :)

It was so hot. _So hot._ Jesse felt like he was melting. The sun was filling the RV and the burners were going full out with the cook, and Jesse could feel sweat running down his back, down his neck, in his hair. He had stripped off his sweatshirt, but still had a long-sleeved shirt on.

He always kept a long-sleeved shirt on.

“It’s so hot.” He moaned idly, swiping at the sweat on his forehead. Mr. White glanced at him carelessly and shrugged.

“Take off that long-sleeved shirt.” He suggested in his _no-duh_ voice. Jesse made a noise in the back of his throat and kept mixing.

“I don’t understand how your… _fashion choices_ can be so important when it’s so hot in here.” Mr. White continued. Jesse clenched his jaw and ignored the older man, stripped down in his tighty-whities and an apron and sweating all the same. Jesse wondered for a minute if it was a good idea for Mr. White to be in such heat, what with the cancer and all.

“Jesse.” Apparently Mr. White was annoyed and had latched on now, because he wasn’t dropping it. “Why don’t you take off your shirt?”

“Jesus, homo much?” Jesse blustered, trying to get Mr. White irritated enough to shut up.

“It’s not good to let your body temperature get so high.” Mr. White cautioned. He was in science-mode now and Jesse always believed him in science-mode, because, hell, the man knew his science. Jesse dashed at the sweat on his forehead again, as futile as the first time. The sweat was running down from his hair. He was drenched.

“Fine.” He muttered, feeling a little light-headed. “Feast your eyes.” He added in a sneer. He peeled the wet shirt from his thin body and felt immediate relief. He wiped his hair with the shirt and tossed it onto his cot, focusing his attention back to the cook in front of him.

“What’s on your arm?” Mr. White asked slowly, the kind of slow question that implies the asker already knows the answer. Jesse bit his lip.

“What?” He asked hopelessly. Mr. White grabbed his arm and Jesse gasped a little, not hurt but more surprised.

“What the hell are these?” Mr. White’s voice was more of a growl now and Jesse backed away.

“What do you think?” He shot back, defiant in his self-consciousness.

Cutting yourself?”

Jesse hunched his shoulders, wanting to disappear into the ugly brown upholstery of the RV. He latched his arms to his sides to hide the scars from view, then looked up at Mr. White through his lashes and shrugged.

“So?”

“So?” Mr. White echoed, disbelieving. “Why would you do that to yourself, Jesse?” He sounded genuinely confused and Jesse wanted to just turn and leave, wander out into the desert and drop dead, become buzzard food.

“Can we just cook?” He asked. He didn’t wait for an answer and turned to face the counter again, but Mr. White grabbed his shoulder and spun him back around.

“Hey, what the hell, man?” Jesse was sick of being manhandled and backed a few steps away. “You can’t just rough me up, alright?”

“Tell me about these!” Mr. White ordered, and Jesse could feel his patience flying out the window.

“Tell you what?” He shot back. “What, you want to hear my sob story? You want to hear about poor little Jesse, the little retard who can barely read? Huh? You want to hear about my parents screaming at me because I flunked all my classes? You want to hear how I just needed something to be _my_ way for once? How I needed to get the bad out somehow? It feels good, okay? The pain? It lets me know I’m still there after my parents started pretending I was invisible. My teachers stopped helping, my parents stopped caring, and I had to do something. And none of you teachers did a damn thing and no one gave a fuck what happened to me so don’t pretend to start caring now.”

His chest was heaving with the force of his emotion, with the words he was spitting at Mr. White, and he couldn’t look him in the eye because he hated anyone knowing any of this, hated that Ginny had walked in on him once after he’d moved in with her and she’d put an end to it right away, hated that he'd gone to a shrink three times before Ginny got bad enough she couldn't force him to go anymore, hated that his aunt with cancer had had to be strong for _him_ instead of the other way around. He turned back to the cook and banged things around, blowing off steam because shit if his hands weren’t shaking.

“Jesse.” Mr. White’s voice was soft now and it made Jesse calm down a little.

“What?” He wasn’t yelling anymore, but his voice rasped and he sounded 100 years old.

“I’m sorry all that happened.” Mr. White said it so quiet it had to float over to Jesse in the air between them and Jesse suddenly felt his eyes pricking with tears, felt his shoulders start to tremble a little. No one had ever apologized to him for his shitty life before. He slumped his shoulders and didn’t say anything.

“You don’t do it anymore?” Mr. White asked, and Jesse shook his head, dashing quickly at his wet eyes with the heel of his hand.

“That’s good, Jesse.” It was his compliment voice, the one Jesse hated and craved all at once, because he hated that one stupid compliment could make his whole chest puff up with pride. “I wouldn’t want you hurting yourself.”

He said the last part as he turned away, as embarrassed by what he was saying as Jesse was, but somehow it meant everything to Jesse. No one had cared what had happened to him in a long time, not since Ginny couldn’t care anymore, and he’d forgotten, a little, what that felt like. He knew that Mr. White wasn’t just lying to make him feel better, because when he lied he could look you right in the eyes, and he couldn’t look at Jesse just then because he wasn’t really good with real emotions around Jesse.

Jesse knew right then, just felt it somehow, that if Mr. White had known what was happening when Jesse was in his class he would’ve done something, would have helped, or at least would have tried, and for some reason it felt like that meant something. He remembered Mr. White calling his house once, asking his parents if they had time for a special conference about Jesse’s grades (they hadn’t, not by then, because his dad said if they went to all the special conferences about Jesse’s grades his teachers requested they’d have to make it a full-time job), saying he was concerned and wanted to discuss possible options.

Jesse remembered that Mr. White had cared, a little, as much as one burnt-out public school teacher could care about one dickhead student who didn’t care, and Jesse swallowed hard, staring at Mr. White’s flabby old-dude back.

“Thanks,” he whispered. He didn’t know if Mr. White heard him, but they both went back to the cook and never talked about it again.


End file.
